Thursday, February 6, 2014

Wary of his growing antiwar attitude, Benito Mussolini removes Count Galeazzo Ciano, his son-in-law, as head of Italy's foreign ministry and takes over the duty himself.

Ciano had been loyal to the fascist cause since its inception, having
taking part in the march on Rome in 1922, which marked the Black
Shirts' rise to power in Italy.

He graduated from the University of Rome
with a degree in law, and then went to work as a journalist. Soon
thereafter he began a career in Italy's diplomatic corps, working as
consul general in China. He married Mussolini's daughter, Edda, in 1930;
from there it was a swift climb up the political ladder: from chief of
the press bureau to member of the Fascist Grand Council, Mussolini's
inner circle of advisers.

Ciano flew a bombing raid against Ethiopia in 1935-36 and was made
foreign minister upon his return to Rome. Both because of his experience
in foreign affairs and personal relationship to the Duce, Ciano became
Mussolini's right-hand man and likely successor. It was Ciano who
promoted an Italian alliance with Germany, despite Mussolini's virtual
contempt for Hitler. Ciano began to suspect the Fuhrer's loyalty to the
"Pact of Steel"--a term Mussolini used to describe the alliance between
Germany and Italy--when Germany invaded Poland without consulting its
Axis partner, despite an agreement to the contrary Ciano made with his
German counterpart, Joachim von Ribbentrop. Despite his concern about
Germany's loyalty, he felt that Italy stood to profit nicely from an
alliance with the "winning side," so when France fell to the Germans,
Ciano advocated Italian participation in the war against the Allies.

After humiliating defeats in Greece and North Africa, Ciano began
arguing for a peace agreement with the Allies. Mussolini considered this
defeatist--and dismissed him as foreign minister, taking control of
that office himself. Ciano became ambassador to the Vatican until he and
other members of the Grand Council finally pushed Mussolini out of
power in July 1943. Mussolini never forgave his son-in-law for what he
later considered a betrayal. Ciano soon fled Rome for the north when the
new provisional government began preparing charges of embezzlement
against him. Ciano unwittingly fled into the arms of pro-fascist forces
in northern Italy and was charged with treason. He was executed on
January 11, 1944 on his father-in-law's orders--Mussolini was installed
in a puppet government that had been set up by the Germans. Ciano's
diaries, which contained brutally frank and sardonic commentaries on the
personalities of the war era, are considered an invaluable part of the
historical record.